Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Liam Davis & The Raven
AUTHOR: Anyta Sunday
PUBLISHER: self-pub
LENGTH: 218 pages
BLURB:
Liam Davis is a serious journalist, and he’s good at it.
Or at least, he was. Until the chief of Scribe, the campus magazine, makes him give up his politics column to write for the party page—the party page that is problematic for two reasons: One, it threatens Liam’s chance of getting the traineeship with his apathetic father at his prestigious newspaper company, and two, he has no idea what it means to party, let alone how to capture this new audience’s attention!
But Liam Davis is no quitter. He’s determined to prove to his father, the chief, and above all himself that he can do it—and do it well.
Life doesn’t make it easy. Not when Freddy Krueger comes stalking out of the shadows to attack him. Luckily the Raven, the campus vigilante—the vigilante getting hate mail sent to Scribe’s opinions page—comes to his rescue.
Now, between finding the perfect angle for his party page columns and making friends (and perhaps something more?), Liam needs to find this mysterious Raven—not only to thank him, but to warn him to watch his back.
REVIEW:
Liam Davis thinks he should probably get a cat. Something that will keep him company in his lonely apartment. Something that will miss him if he were to suddenly drop dead one day. Something that will…ok, it will probably not care about the whole dropping dead thing, except to regret not getting an owner with the foresight to install kitty doors. So maybe a cat is a bad idea. What Liam Davis should get is a friend. At least a friend is less likely to use your dead carcass as nibbles until some unlucky person finds his slightly gnawed-off remains. Too bad you can’t exactly adopt a friend at the local shelter. Well, at least not without coming off looking like a weirdo.
Anyways, Liam has bigger problems than his lack of feline/homosapien companions. With the start of a new year at the Scribe, his college’s news magazine, he is hoping to land the coveted role of editor. Because if he can’t get and hold down the job for two years, there is no way to convince his absentee father to give him a place at his company. This is going to be his year. He just knows it.
Unfortunately someone forgot to tell the universe that. And if it is a punch to the gut that he doesn’t have the editor position, it is a kick to the balls to be taken off politics and thrown into the ‘party page.’ He is a serious journalist…what the hell does he know about the get-pissed-and-puke set? But there might just be a story lurking there, he just has to find it.
What he finds is The Raven. What he learns is a whole lot more.
Yeah, so I really really loved this story. It has mystery, it has romance, and it has one of the most self-aware/absolutely clueless men I have ever had the pleasure of reading about.
I think that is perhaps one of the great things about this book. About Liam. He is so upfront, so honest, so willing to try and to learn, and yet he does not put things together the same way that other people do. He is ruled by his head, not his heart (well, not most of the time), and he makes no apologies for it. And while he does grow as a character in this story, he stays true to himself. It was refreshing that there wasn’t some big personality change at like two-thirds of the way through. That suddenly, by the power of gay love and friends, that Liam Davis becomes the heart of the party and the big man on campus. He never really wanted that, so if it had happened it would have felt so incredibly disingenuous.
I personally am introverted; I don’t do big crowds well, and actually interacting with them, for long periods of time is fucking exhausting. And I am not saying that Liam and I are the same person, but it feels like sometimes if you are not extroverted that people see you as something that needs to be fixed, and that just pisses me off. You probably shouldn’t hide in your room and live a life alone because you are afraid of people, but to try and make someone something they are not, just because you are, is kinda rude. Liam’s friends let him test the boundaries, move him out of his lonely apartment, but I think they also realize that who he is at his core is not a bad thing. Which I really appreciated.
“Sometimes there is no logical answer. Sometimes it’s just a feeling. Stop thinking up here and think here.”
He touched my chest, and I frowned at his fingers, staring at the bitten-off nails a long moment before I spoke. “What if I will never be like you…What if I don’t always yell and laugh and cry and cheer at things you or others might?”
He dropped his fingers to the edge of the pillow under me.
“Maybe,” I said, drawing the laptop closer and jotting in the date, “we should both think about things.”
There was something really great about the romance in this story. Not only was I unsure who exactly he was ‘supposed to’ end up with, at the beginning, but the hate/want/can’t-have/need/why-can’t-you-see-I-am-in-fucking-love-with-you thing that followed them throughout the story was awesome. I love slow burn love stories, especially when they are used in connection with the gay-realization subplot. Watching Liam come to terms with his gayness (which was fun, since it was more of a shrug than a freak out) but be so damn blind to what the dude was wanting from him, just hit my sweet spot. What can I say? I love cluelessness in a man. It is just adorable. Especially when it hangs out on the right side of annoyingly-blind. And that the guy seemed to get Liam, seemed to understand what Liam was not saying, but totally felt, was great. Their relationship was so real, but also so fun to watch.
And the Raven mystery. Love, love, love the mystery. I seriously had to keep changing my mind as to who was the Raven was. And I was not disappointed by the answer. The bad guy was well written, so that in hindsight it is obvious, but going through the story, I only got niggles as to who it was. I love when that happens. And strangely enough, I didn’t mind the whole confrontation scene at the end. I’m not usually one for the whole monologueing bad guy thing, but I like how all the players worked in this scene. There is a certain person, however (and if you have read the story you will know who this is, but I totally refuse to spoil it for others) who deserves to smacked, at least twice a day, for the rest of their life. They may have their excuses but dude that was a harsh/horrible thing to do. (I would, though, love to see a story going further into it…cause I need to know why?!)
This story was just so good. I absolutely loved all the secondary characters, even those that deserve smacking, and all the subplots were mixed so well that I enjoyed pretty much all aspects of the story. I can only hope that a second book is planned, because I’d love to read more about these guys (and gals), and I need to know what happens with Liam and his father. I really do recommend this book. It has a great mystery, but it is not overly angsty, and is a real fun read.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
Got this on my next buy list!